A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Perceived foreign accentedness: Acoustic distances and lexical properties
Authors: Vincent Porretta, Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen, Benjamin V. Tucker
Publisher: Springer New York LLC
Publication year: 2015
Journal: Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics
Journal name in source: ATTENTION PERCEPTION & PSYCHOPHYSICS
Journal acronym: ATTEN PERCEPT PSYCHO
Volume: 77
Issue: 7
First page : 2438
Last page: 2451
Number of pages: 14
ISSN: 1943-3921
eISSN: 1943-393X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-015-0916-3
In this study, we examined speaker-dependent (acoustic) and speaker-independent (lexical) linguistic influences on perceived foreign accentedness. Accentedness ratings assigned to Chinese-accented English words were analyzed, taking accentedness as a continuum. The speaker-dependent variables were included as acoustic distances, measured in relation to typical native-speaker values. The speaker-independent variable measures were related to the properties of individual words, not influenced by the speech signal. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this represents the first attempt to examine speaker-dependent and speaker-independent variables simultaneously. The model indicated that the perception of accentedness is affected by both acoustic goodness of fit and lexical properties. The results are discussed in terms of matching variability in the input to multidimensional representations.